Pre Departure Blog

Diana Magner
I am looking forward to experiencing so many different cultures in a short period of time. It will be amazing to be able to apply what we had read and learned about this countries to actually observing these countries and their customs. I have never been to central Europe so I look forward to comparing the role of women there to what I have seen in other parts of Europe and in the United States. I also would like to see what different experience we have in comparison to the group that visited India. The thing I am looking forward to most is meeting with the Austrian women scientists. This fascinates me because I am a science major here and one of the mar topics that always comes up is the challenges that women face in the science and technology industries, similar to the glass ceiling effect that women in the business industry face. It thinks its such a cultural difference that they will not wish to discuss being women scientists especially because we go to a women's college so are such empowered women and love to discuss that topic. One thing that I discussed in my predepature paper is the fact that before I read the book I assumed that all the countries would be very similar. The more I research and learn about these cultures the more I realize how different each one is and how much progression each has experienced post communism. I look forward to see how much Prague has changed since the guest speaker visited it over a decade ago. I cant wait to go!